How commission from operators funds the site

There is no paywall on Kikit, no gated newsletter and no premium tier. Almost everything we publish is paid for by affiliate commission. When a reader registers at a casino via one of our outbound links and starts playing, the operator may pay Kikit a referral fee. That fee comes out of the casino's marketing budget, and nothing is ever added to your deposit, your stakes or the balance you cash out. Where an operator runs several bonus tiers, the offer you claim through a Kikit link is never worse than the one you would find by going to the casino direct.

Every page on Kikit that carries affiliate links shows a short notice near the top pointing back here for the full explanation. The outbound buttons are also marked in a format most modern browsers recognise, following established search-engine and consumer-protection recommendations.

Editorial independence: no pay-to-rank, ever

To put it bluntly, because it is the whole point: commission plays no part in an operator's position in a Kikit ranking, and it never can. The commercial rate is agreed with an operator once and stays fixed whether they top a table, sit at number ten or drop off it altogether. If a casino fails our retests, its position slips. If a casino has never paid Kikit a cent and the testing supports a listing, it earns the listing.

In practice that shows up in three concrete ways. In several markets we have turned down the highest commission offers on the table because our test data did not justify a spot. We remove operators the moment payouts, terms or support noticeably decline, and we say why in the page footer. And a position earned through real testing cannot be reclaimed by an operator waving a higher rate later.

Several operators pay Kikit nothing

Not every casino featured on Kikit is an affiliate partner. Our tables include three categories of operator:

  • Affiliate partners. A standard commercial deal, a fixed referral fee and zero influence on scoring. These make up the bulk of most tables.
  • In-house programmes we have not joined. Some operators run their own affiliate schemes rather than working through a network. Even when we have not joined them, we still list the operator when it deserves the position.
  • Networks we deliberately stay off. A handful of networks come with terms we do not accept, and operators connected only through those networks pay Kikit nothing yet still earn their place on merit.

The point is straightforward: "pays us the most" and "ranks at the top" are two entirely separate columns in our internal records, and one does not feed the other.

What money can and cannot buy on Kikit

  • We will accept a fixed, clearly disclosed affiliate commission on outbound signups.
  • We will not trade a ranking position, an inflated score or a softer conclusion for cash.
  • We will not publish undisclosed sponsored articles or advertorials dressed up as editorial reviews.
  • We will not hold back critical reporting in exchange for a better rate.

Spotted something on Kikit that appears to contradict any of this? Email hello@kikit.io with "Editorial concern" as the subject. A real editor will read it.